So this is the future I'm sure many of you have noticed, as I have, how inescapable these amazing new "films" (or, as fans call them, "movies") have become in the media recently. I suppose every generation has to come up with something different that the oldsters didn't have! Anyway, I thought it was time I gave one of these "movies" a try. And I have to say I was impressed. It's all very different from the one I remember seeing in my own youth, a minute long show of a train arriving at a station. No, this was in colour, and you could hear people speak. Even more amazing, there were pictures up there on the screen of things I'm sure have never existed in real life! I've got to say, these technology people really know their stuff.
But I have to say I was quite disappointed by what actually happened in this "film". It was some sort of sci-fi thing called "Dredd", and for every one of the five minutes I spent looking at it, people were shooting and attacking each other. That's all that happened in every bit of it I saw. People fighting. And I'm told young people today watch these films all the time. Is this sort of violence obsessed medium really what we want our children to be spending their time with? (To be fair, my son tells me that there are different kinds of "movie". Apparently one sort is called a "biopick" - because the hero kills people with an icepick, and "biopick" sounds more sci-fi than "icepick" - and there's even a kind meant for women, the "romcoms". But I can't imagine any woman I know wanting to sit down and watch people killing each other for two hours, so I think those films can't get many customers. And why do they call them "romcoms" anyway? I guess it must have something to do with zombies?)
As I'm sure you'll all agree, this "new medium" really doesn't seem like it matches up to good old books. Certainly great authors like Norman Mailer never wrote about people fighting wars and punching each other! But, as a professional journalist, I thought I should be careful to be completely fair. So I read a book based on the "script" for one of these things. After all, once the words have been put down in print, anything that's wrong with them can't be blamed on problems with the technology, now can it? And I have to say I was disappointed again. "Rambo: First Blood Part II - The Novelization" was simply one of the worst books I have ever read. Not only were the characters ludicrous, but the prose style was absolutely terrible. Looks like these "screenplay creators" don't know nearly as much about writing as proper book authors, I'm afraid.
So, while my hat's certainly off to the Lumiere Brothers for all the impressive gimmicks they've added to their cameras over the last few years (or is it the Lumiere Sons now?), I think I have to say: the sooner this fad disappears, the better. I'm sure you're all join me in looking forward to the day when my son and all his friends have grown up enough to abandon these childish, unpleasant "movies", and settle down with a good book.
(Search and replace "film" with "game" and "book" with "film", then publish in any newspaper in the land.)
(Brought to you by a sense of mild exasperation, and the inspiring example of Sophie Houlden's Can Art be Games?)
To sleep, perchance to trilogise Recently I appear to have been dreaming the plots of all the genre fantasy trilogies nobody's quite got around to writing yet. Or possibly the plots of some of the ones I have no conscious memory of reading :)
Exhibit A: I am a tree, walking to the Vatican in the sixteenth century to beg a papal indulgence. Every time I stop at a cathedral, the fountain in the courtyard freezes over (to be fair, it is winter), and when I bend down to look at it I can see alchemical symbols lightly inscribed in the ice.
Exhibit B: I'm one of a group of fairies, trapped in the quotidian world (see Magic Butterfly, Wheel, Crushed By). Apparently the way to break on back to the other side is to go to a deserted nineteenth century factory and invoke the spirits of all the children who got chopped up by the machinery (which will tear reality a new hole, or something). In practice, this doesn't work out as well as you might hope.
Exhibit C: The first gun ever made of any particular type has a special power which I forget, but which gets used up as soon as it's fired. So I'm looking for the prototype of some random revolver or other which fell down the back of the inventor's sofa and never got used. I can't remember what happens next, which may be just as well.
I shall spare you the vague half dreams about instant messaging the dead.
Clearly I have somehow angered the muse of genre fantasy*, who in revenge has chosen this way of waking me up at 4 am :)
* Which one is that, anyway? I'm guessing Urania...
True Romance Having spent the evening watching a set of DVDs with the time honoured plot of "boy and girl become immortal, boy meets girl, boy and girl spend rest of series looking for a way to die", I am filled with a curious romantic optimism.
(Warning: this may not work for anyone else. You may especially wish to consider the fact that the first DVD of the series is called Quest for Death, after which we get Bitter Flesh, Unquenchable Thirst, and finally Unending Nightmare, before rushing out to rent them...)
Also: You heard it here last - Buffy Season 8 will be a six issue comic, says Warren Ellis.
And: The hardcore group has finally been evicted from the Castle Mill boatyard. I guess the question now is what happens when the boats begin to sink...
Warning: only really makes sense if you've read a lot of fantasy, in raw or distilled form.
Also: Reading the piece inspired me to type "robert jordan spanking nun" into google, an act which proved more fruitful than I had hoped. Be Disturbed. Be Very, Very Disturbed.
Also Many thanks to all the people who sent cards, visited me in hospital, and lent audiobooks.
Speaking of which... I kind of lost track after a while, I'm afraid. So, does anybody recognise and want back:
The Cult Files Big Box (audiobook) The Radio Times reading of CS Lewis' Prince Caspian (possibly geroge?) Eoin Colfer's The Supernaturalist on CD (currently with tinyjo, who wanted to borrow it, but it wasn't hers originally)
Last Valentine's Day... I met this cute young doctor. She told me to take off my shirt, squeezed the blood vessels in my groin, threw me roughly to an examining room table... and then she stuck a tap in my arm before injecting me with nitroglycerine.
Somehow my fantasies never seem to quite work out in practice.
Basically, a few weeks ago I went into hospital with a vision problem, at which point they told me I had a blood pressure roughly equal to the atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus, and was bleeding into the backs of my eyeballs. I spent the next couple of weeks having blood tests, urine tests, echo scans, X-rays, ECG, more blood tests, ultrasound, NMR, more urine tests, and finally extra special blood tests. After which the conclusion was... there's nothing wrong with me. Except for the blood pressure.
This means I get a diagnosis of essential hypertension, which is obtained by eliminating all other possible diagnoses for high blood pressure. Having read this list of risk factors, clearly this ought to be recognised as an occuptaional disease for game developers... the webpage doesn't even mention coke or crystal meth, which apparently can cause it as well.
(For the curious, I have both the genetic factors - my mother had high blood pressure - and low birth weight - I was born prematurely - which are apparently two of the major "associated environmental factors". So the chances that you will develop an astonishingly high blood pressure just because you eat a lot of MSG and have a stressful job are pretty low, though it might go up.)
The bottom line is that I should be okay as long as I keep on taking the tablets, and if I practise clean living (anything for a change, I suppose) I should hopefully be able to stop taking at least some of the medication. Meanwhile, my heart is intact (if slightly more muscular than it should be), my kidneys are in one piece (though slightly bruised), I haven't been bleeding into my brain to an excessive degree, and my eyes have mostly grown back (and ought to finish healing up over the next couple of months).
So I should be fine, basically.
Next year I think I'll ask Saint Valentine for a fantasy that doesn't involve doctors, though...
When Suns Attack Having mostly recovered from yesterday's migraine*, I staggered out the front door this morning for an early dental appointment to be confronted by... a glorious spring sun aimed right at my optic nerves. The resulting big coloured flashing squares all over my visual field certainly added a cheering hallucinogenic aspect to lying on my back while the hygienist assaulted my gums with an ice pick, but did nothing for my road crossing ability. Or, I suspect, my typing.
Have now bought anti migraine medication, but am unable to focus on the instructions. Why, oh wht, haven't they thought of putting the instructions on these things in large print? :-)
Anyway, on to the main point of this post:
Does anyone want to go and see Los Diablos at the Bullingdon Arms next Wednesday? (acosutic night, £3, starts 8 pm, featuring the survivors from Sexy Breakfast among others)
Also, for anyone urgently in need of more decadence in their lives, Burlesk returns to the Zodiac on February 24th. Featuring "the dark side of disco tragedy", which sounds promising, though I suspect that, like Vampyros Lesbos, the show will feature neither vampires nor lesbians.
And finally... today's most popular meme, slightly adjusted.
I have chosen two words from the following list** which I think best describe me. Pick two (or six) words from the list below (or, if you prefer, somebody else's list. Or indeed the dictionary) which you think sum up the essence of my personality and, err, I've forgotten what happens next and can't read prpperly at the moment, but presumably it involves posting them here...
* I used to get these very occasionally, but seem to have had a lot recently. I assume that I have finally become so intelligent that my brain is melting ynder the strain.
** List created with the assistance of HP Lovecraft, Stephen Donaldson and John Clute.
Judith Berman, Bear Daughter Mad Prince Hal, Vellum The Hatted One, Fly by Night Joe Hill, 20th Century Ghosts Sarah Monette, Melusine Holly Phillips, In the Palace of Repose Anna Tambour, Spotted Lily
But which of them will look best mud wrestling in a bikini for the TV coverage? Place your bets here!
Going Up To Grasmoor The first time I heard a Kate Bush song, I was walking up a mountain behind a teenage boy with hypothermia.
The weather had clamped down hard an hour or so before. The ground was completely hidden by driving horizontal rain, and visibility had dropped to five feet. It was one of those days which make it clear why they have Mountain Rescue teams in the Lake District.
I was last man in the group, making sure no-one dropped behind, so I noticed right away when Mike stopped walking and just stood there, shivering. We tried talking to him, but he wouldn't answer questions. We thought about going back, but our teachers had dropped us off on one side of the mountain, and then driven off to wait for us on the other side. So it would probably take longer to find somewhere warm if we went back than it would if we just kept going. In the end we got Mike to walk forwards, but then he started singing to himself. He must have sung Wuthering Heights fifty times or more over the next few hours. Maybe it was the only song he could remember.
After a while we got off the cliff side path and cut over to the col leading to the valleys on the other side. This wasn't really very wide, but we couldn't see much beyond the length of our arms, so it looked like an endless expanse of beaten down heather and rocks. The wind started to pick up around then. Though we didn't know it, the other four boys who'd set out that morning had just started trying to ascend their mountain, and the leader had been blown fifteen feet down the slope, rolling through the bushes.
It was pretty clear that we had no idea where we were going, so we got out the map. Which blew away while we were still trying to untangle it from the string attached to its plastic case. I remember it looked really interesting, tumbling away into the sky. We considered setting up the emergency tent and leaving Mike in it with the heater and a companion, but in the end we decided to just keep going. So we picked a direction and started walking.
Pretty soon we hit a nice gentle slope, and started going down. Not long after that, we walked into a flooded river. By that point no one liked the idea of turning around and going back up the hill. Except for Mike, who I guess didn't care much either way. So we linked arms and made a circle, and walked through the river, holding each other up. Nobody fell, though the water came up to our chests.
A few minutes later we found a road. And from there it was easy. Within a couple of hours we were sitting in the Land Rover, drinking hot coffee from Thermos flasks and waiting for Mike to start talking again.
That night Mike persuaded a girl he fancied to share a sleeping bag with him, since he needed someone to help keep him warm. Or so he said. They both looked really happy in the morning.
What I Learned on New Years Eve If you have to get up at eight am to help sell last minute goats in the Oxfam bookshop, do not go to bed after three. Fortunately my zombie self proved quite capable of traditional zombie work, i.e. carrying boxes.
There is nothing more dangerous than a redhead armed with a bottle of foot lotion.
Arriving late at parties can lead to drinking the midnight toast out of a soup can.
Hmm. Perhaps I should combine these with my Christmas discoveries, and start work on a complete set of Useful Rules For Everyday Life...
1) Start girl band called "Kitten Inside", all of whose instruments will be pink, translucent and have a kitten inside. NB: Check on availablity of ear muffs for cats. Also, hire lawyer.
2) Open chain of high street shops with medical body scanning equipment and 3D printers. Sell life size models of customers' spleens manufactured while they wait, personalised skeletons showing where buyer fell off the climbing frame at age 8, etc.
3) Turn back bedroom into small business straightening bent piercings. "Walk in funny, walk out straight!" NB: Invest in pliers, hammer, crowbar. Also, soundproof back bedroom.
4) Write bestselling book explaining how to use the Cthulhu Mythos in modern business, along lines of "Become a Better Actuary with Sun Tzu's Art of War", "Boosting Your Sales With Jesus", etc.
Needs eye catching title - poss. "Sanity is for Losers"?
Suggested Chapter Headings - "Riches from Yuggoth: The Next Stage in Business Process Outsourcing". "Looking for an Angle? - Thinking Outside the Cosmos", "Crawling Nuclear Chaos: Career Paths for Today's Executives", "R'lyeh is Rising - how the coming transformation of humanity will affect your target market", "The Shadow Over NASDAQ".
What I Learned At Christmas If you want to burn away the tattered wings of a giant metal dragonfly, use petrol.
Drinking until you pass out on Christmas Eve is a fine ambition, but the results are more impressive if you're still awake after 9 o'clock.
The best way to give someone their heart's desire is to check their Amazon wishlist... and warez a copy of everything on it.
Frustrated by your inability to get a publisher for your debut novel (aka "Jesus vs Orpheus at the Earth's Core")? Write a fantasy set in a magical land where all the centaurs speak Latin, and edutainment publishers will fall over themselves offering you a contract!
When removing a hyperactive kitten from the bathroom sink, wear oven gloves.
If you need to take revenge, don't get mad... instead, turn their children into bubble blowing dragons. This, I think, is the true meaning of Christmas.
Apparently Your Song in on soon as well. Personally, I'm hoping for a rendition of Bonnie Tyler's "Faster than the Speed of Night" by Meanwhile Back in Communist Russia, delivered as fragments of poetry between swigs from the vodka bottle...
But the music got less mellow (or I inhaled more of whatever the security guys were searching for), and in the end I enjoyed myself plenty. Perhaps I should have shown my support by buying one of Mr Scruff's trademarked tea cosies... but then, that would mean drinking tea:-)
In other news, I've been reading this year's most horrifying book - Watching the English, by Kate Fox. I am now obsessed by the fear that, like the famous centipede, the next time I attempt to join a queue my social mores will get all tangled up with my inhibitions and I'll end up unable to move, paralysed by self analysis.
On the plus side, I developed the first symptoms Monday evening, so I hope to have recovered by tomorrow. Or at least be able to speak above a whisper.
In other news, me and my glamorous assistant have taken direct action against the garden. As he said "I've never cut down a weed that's bigger than I am before". I have also read most of Accelerando (in between coughing, oozing, and various other unpleasant biological acts), and can report that Charlie's sexual fantasies are showing. Still, if you like cellular automata and dominatrices, this is definitely the novel for you...
Desperately Seeking Peapod In a couple of weeks time I'm going to the Wychwood Festival. So I was wondering... does anyone have a tent I could borrow? I promise not to abuse it unless strictly necessary:-)
(If not, I'll just buy a peapod or something. But I'm happy to buy drinks for anyone with a tent for rent:-))
